Locked out with Bitlocker (Pavilion X2 10

[Drunk_Miffy]

Hi all

So this is an urgent matter in regards to gaining access back to the Laptop.

I'm looking for help on behalf of my neice who has now been locked out of her 'HP Pavilion x2 10'(?)  i'm assuming it's one of those from looking up pictures of it.

It's all down to an update that she had applied without knowing what the outcome would be, i've done some research on the matter of retrieving the recovery key and the requirments.

She doesn't knowingly have any back up of it on a pendrive, printed out and she also doesn't recall her email used for her microsoft account.

Reasons being she wasn't aware of this "Bitlocker" being on or enabled on the device, and i'm assuming was never prompted(or missed) a notification to back up the key.

I know there's the re-installing Windows route yet having 2 years worth of course work on the Laptop it's not a viable solution at this moment in time.
This seems to be an HP/Microsoft problem that has caused a great deal of panic that shouldn't of happened.

As she starts back at collage in the upcoming week i'm hoping i (HP) can resolve this.
Information i see on screen  is the following:
Key ID is B1BD9C23

Drive Label: DESKTOP-2ARQ4TK-Windows 23/11/2015

Thanks for any future imput. 

[CherylG]

@IT_WinSec Any ideas?

[IT_WinSec]

Hi @Drunk_Miffy

Welcome to the HP Support Forum. Thank you for posting.

BitLocker is a Microsoft software component designed to protect computers against offline attacks, unauthorized access typically if your PC gets stolen. BitLocker is full disk encryption software. More info:

>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitLocker

>> http://www.windowscentral.com/how-use-bitlocker-encryption-windows-10

BitLocker was activated by someone and during the activation time it prompts the user to save/store the key in a safe place.

If this is a company owned asset, you should turn to your company's IT support guys and they should be able to provide you with the recovery key.  However, based on your description, I can conclude this laptop is a home computer and it does not belong to a company. 

If this is personal device, most probably you use a slightly different BitLocker version for certain PCs and tablets known as Device encryption. If the user got not prompts, probably your key is stored in Microsoft OneDrive online storage with your niece's Microsoft account here :

>> https://onedrive.live.com/recoverykey

More info

>> https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/12/microsoft-may-have-your-encryption-key-heres-...

>> http://windowsitpro.com/microsoft-surface/locating-your-microsoft-surface-bitlocker-recovery-key

>> http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/21433-bitlocker-recovery-unlock-drive-windows-8-a.html

Try these and let me know if you manage to find the key.

P.S.  Above you mention that "she doesn't recall her email used for Microsoft account".  In this case, you need to reach to Microsoft for assistance (HP cannot help much in this particularly as this is Microsoft thing):

>> https://account.live.com/ACSR

>> https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/12429/microsoft-account-sign-in-cant

Please, let me know how it goes.

[Drunk_Miffy]

Well unfortuntly there was no recovery key in her microsoft account after we was able to reset the password, considering it was supposed to have been stored in there i don't know what happened.
So i've had to re-install her OS, and i've backed up her Bitlocker Recovery key, if she decides to have it enabled.

So long story short, if anyone happens to be reading this in the future, make sure you back up your Bitlocker security Key.